


wildest dreams

by Stelmarya



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Interracial Relationship, Love/Hate, Poor Aram is caught in the middle, Undercover Missions, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23602939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stelmarya/pseuds/Stelmarya
Summary: She didn’t have any proof, Cooper hadn’t even been reinstated for that long, and yet she was a hundred percent sure there was some force conspiring against Samar so it was always Ressler and her the ones going undercover together, the ones going together to look for clues and interrogate suspects and kick doors to chase second-class thugs. She didn’t have proof, but also no doubts.Or, Samar and Ressler have to deal with the remnants of their relationship. Set in S3.
Relationships: Aram Mojtabai & Donald Ressler, Aram Mojtabai & Samar Navabi, Samar Navabi/Donald Ressler
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	wildest dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly inspired by the fic _stronger than the mighty oak_ by windfalling. English is not my first language, apologies for the mistakes.
> 
> Title inspired by Taylor Swift's _Wildest dreams_.

_wildest dreams_

\--

“Hey, are you—Oh, that’s a lot of blood.”

“It’s fine, most of it is mine.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.”

His blonde hair filled her view, it was all she could see apart from the bright scarlet of the blood trailing down her eyebrows.

“Ressler—”

They hadn’t been this close since that night, since any resemblance of partnership between them crumbled like a sandcastle. His cologne invaded her nostrils, penetrated her clothes like smoke, and the perspective of bleeding to death was less alarming than that.

“Ressler.”

“Stay still.”

Only he could sound so bitter while trying to save her life. The cut on her crown wasn’t deep, she wasn’t even dizzy, but head injuries always bled a lot; that was why her face was crimson. Of course, there were also the cuts on her arms, which she’d gotten trying to defend herself, and that slash on her collarbone, but apart from that she was _fine_. She wanted him to get away from her, to stop asphyxiating her with his scent and presence, but she didn’t know how to tell him that without falling again in one of their eternal arguments.

“I’m fine, look,” she tried to stand up, sliding up the wall and ignoring the sharp protests of her collarbone, but Ressler had a good grip on her; a hand on her nape and the other on her lower back, pulling her down with him back to the floor.

“ _Stay still_ ,” he growled, sounding genuinely upset, and Samar couldn’t avoid rolling her eyes. “Do you have a death wish or somethin’?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

A brief struggle ensued; they glared at each other, trying to prevail over the other. His hands were already covered with her blood, slightly staining his immaculate suit and pale skin as he shifted and cleaned the sweat on his face.

 _That’s how it is, right?_ , she thought wryly, grabbing him by the wrist to pull his hands away from her. _Me, tarnishing his perfect job and perfect life and perfect suit._ Perfect _agent Ressler._

“Get a grip, Ressler. Anyone would think you don’t hate me, watching you now.”

“Do you think I’ll let you die just because you betrayed me? We’re partners, don’t forget it.”

From anyone else, that sentence would’ve been friendly, full of determination and kindness, but from him it sounded like a threat. That barely-covered hostility had been the constant of their relationship for the last few weeks, permeating their interactions, everything that involved their work relationship, and now, as she bleed profusely under his resentful eyes and steady hands, Samar couldn’t help but think how long could they go on like this, in this thin parody of camaraderie, until the rope broke and their metaphorical wounds started to ooze.

“Do whatever you want,” she said, just to have the last word, pulling her head as far away from him as possible, listening to the sirens three floors downstairs and the screams of the SWAT agents as they subdued the remaining assailants. “You always do.”

They couldn’t go on like this. One of them would have to yield, the first to suffocate under that cloud of toxicity and resentment, but it wasn’t going to be her. Samar was going to continue down this relentless path, even if it was the last thing she did.

\--

She didn’t have any proof, Cooper hadn’t even been reinstated for that long, and yet she was a hundred percent sure there was some force conspiring against Samar so it was always Ressler and her the ones going undercover together, the ones going together to look for clues and interrogate suspects and kick doors to chase second-class thugs. She didn’t have proof, but also no doubts. Case in point:

“I’m seventy-five percent sure this isn’t going to explode.”

“ _Seventy-five?_ You gotta be kidding me.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Something better than that!”

She had been a spy and agent for too long to be scared by something as menial as a homemade bomb; she had basic knowledge of explosives and she knew methods of evacuation, but his presence was a nuisance, as always. What else did he want from her, to pull out an actual book from her time in the Mossad and turn it off?

“Aram, please tell me Navabi isn’t wrong, _again_.”

She glared at him, irritation flowing in her veins like blood and plasma, and she turned to the pipe bomb, full of colorful cables and tape. Besides, why the hell did it have to be another bomb? Hadn’t they been through this too many times, interrogating Aram on the phone as their lives hung by a thread, or in this case, by a cable? She was tired of bombs and explosives; she preferred a chase and old-school fistfight.

 _Reddington really has to find new suspects, just for a change,_ she thought.

“ _I’m not sure_ ,” said Aram on the phone, clicking at exorbitant speed on the Post Office, looking for a way to save their asses, as always. “ _Gimme a minute._ ”

“Don’t worry, we have four,” said Ressler coldly, raising his eyebrows and wiping a hand over his face. That pissed her off even more: Aram was doing the best he could; it wasn’t like all bombs were the same, and he knew it. Besides, he didn’t have to be rude just because he was incapable of handling a situation he couldn’t control, and she told him so out loud.

_If I’m going to die because of that twenty-five percent, it won’t be in silence with this moron._

“Need to control everything?” Ressler repeated, pulling the phone away from his face so he didn’t leave poor Aram deaf. “McDormand is getting away, this bomb built by a fifteen-year old brat is about to explode in our faces and Reddington will probably give him a prize or something, and you say I’m a control freak?”

“Exhibit A.”

The satisfaction of seeing him angry, truly angry, was as childish as necessary. The fragments of their old relationship in her chest were more bearable when she saw him annoyed, irritated, when she managed to pull him down from his high moral ground to where the rest of them mortals were, flawed and all.

“You’ve never been professional in the whole time you’ve been on the team; you always do whatever you want, rules and consequences be damned. Exhibit A,” he spat, crossing his arms and facing her directly.

“Who’s being unprofessional now?”

“The traitor dares to tell me that?”

“ _Guys_ ,” Aram sounded more desperate than before, and she had the feeling the bomb had nothing to do with it. “ _Relax, I have the photos and instructions. How long do you have left?_ ”

“Three minutes and half,” they both said, uncoordinated. They were still facing each other, with the explosive at their right on the table, as if it was the least of their concerns.

 _Maybe I’m not as collected as I thought,_ she told herself on the inside, darkly enjoying her partner’s flushed face and irate eyes. They had to stop, they had to find a better solution for this, but neither of them was willing to surrender. How to solve this, how to proceed?

“ _Alright, cut the white cable, don’t touch the blue or the red one, please. I think McDormand used flash powder with too much aluminum_.”

“White,” Ressler jumper immediately, using one of the many pliers on the workshop to cut the cable. Samar crossed her arms and waited, watching him with narrowed eyes. “You sure?”

“ _Yes_.”

A brief shift of his fingers; the clock froze at 2:38, and then it went off, and that was it. Another successful mission, another prevented death in their search for members of the Blacklist. She had already lost count of how many times they had been in mortal danger as months passed and the amount of conspirations, murders and kidnappings increased in the team.

“Seventy-five percent sure,” Ressler mumbled, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I knew I shouldn’t have believed you.”

“Aram himself _said_ the suspect had used too much aluminum. The correct radium is seven to three of sodium perchlorate and alumi—”

“But did that mean it wasn’t going to explode, or that it was going to be even bigger?”

“ _Guys_ ,” Aram squeaked on the phone. “ _Guys, God, did you turn off the bomb? Are you okay? Don’t leave me hanging like that_.”

“Yeah, Aram, we’re fine,” she told him, watching the phone sideways. At some point in the discussion they had gotten close, a hair’s breadth away from each other, face to face, neither of them willing to back off or admit they were behaving like children. “Tell Cooper everything is under control, we’ll talk with the police here.”

She hung up with a click, and then braced herself for another direct attack.

“Say whatever you want about me and my alleged betrayal, but don’t call me unprofessional again, _ever_.”

“I’m just stating facts.” God, she could’ve wiped that smile off his face with a smack. Ressler never reacted as she expected: severe and moralist in some of their arguments and derisive and acerbic in others. She never knew what she was going to face during their fights.

“I know you hate me, okay? _I know_ , but that doesn’t make me unprofessional or a traitor or whatever you want to call me these days—”

“No? What about the thing with the laptop?”

“I was helping Keen and Reddington and you _know_ it—”

“Behind my back, me, the team leader, the one in charge of keeping—”

“—because you’re incapable of seeing beyond your own judgement—”

“—it’s the team, you have no right to skip the rules to—”

“Excuse me,” a voice at the door interrupted their rants. Samar didn’t bother turning; it was one of the police officers they had instructed to stay behind and watch the perimeter as Ressler and her dealt with the bomb. “The sus—suspect was capture on the basement. Am I interrupting or—?”

“No,” said Ressler, without taking his eyes off her. For a moment time stopped between them, electrified, dense, full of things unsaid and things said and betrayals and actions they couldn’t undo. “I’ll be right there.”

And the moment when Ressler’s gaze lowered to her lips just for a second would remain in her mind for a long time. She knew that gesture, she knew the feelings behind those hooded, light eyes. Apparently, she wasn’t the only masochist in that circus.

\--

Another case in point:

“I think we’ve traumatized Aram,” she said in his ear, swaying to the rhythm of the music in the dance floor of the Kavner Manor, without taking her eyes off the current Blacklister they had to capture. They were undercover and, as always, it was always Ressler and her the ones caught in the chaos, if Reddington didn’t drag Keen with him.

“What do you mean?”

“Last night he gave me a leaflet of anger management techniques before going home. I know he gave you one too. Without mentioning deep breathing, squeezing balls and mediations when he thinks he’s being subtle.”

Ressler hummed in front of her, twirling her quickly before falling back into the basic position. She didn’t need to see him to know he was smiling.

“He’s exaggerating. It’s not like I’m gonna kill you while we fill paperwork at six pm.”

“Oh? _I_ will, just call me a bitch one more time.”

His laughter rumbled in her whole body, she felt it on the tip of her fingers and her crown and her heart. She moved her head slightly to follow Barton Kavner with her eyes, two women at his side barely clad in tank tops and shorts. Ressler’s hand was warm and dry, placed on the exposed skin of her back, although Samar wasn’t sure why he put it there, considering the amount of space covered by her dress. At no time did she thought of removing it.

“I’m sorry about that, really,” he mumbled, and his words were now serious, genuine. He squeezed her hand, twirling and spinning so she could follow Kavner without revealing their cover, skilfully avoiding other dancing couples. “And I don’t hate you.”

“Really?” she said, dragging her words. Kavner sat in the biggest, most opulent table of the room, letting one of his companions climb his lap as the other went out of the hall for some reason. There was no trace of suspicion she could notice; actually, the idiot seemed more stoned than a drug dealer. “You have us all fooled, then.”

“That’s what happens when you betray someone’s trust.”

Everything seemed to dim between them, even the music. She wanted to look at his face, detect his honesty in the lines of his face and the green of his eyes, but she wasn’t going to let Kavner go. Samar rested her chin on his shoulder and decided to continue.

“I don’t regret it,” she said, making sure he knew she was being honest too. If this was going to be the moment of heartfelt confessions, right in the middle of a cover op pretending to be a married couple, stuck in the mansion of a megalomaniac mass-murderer, then so be it. “I’m sorry you consider it a betrayal, but I did what I had to do for my friends.”

“You did what you thought was right,” Ressler whispered in her ear, closer than ever, brushing her cheek with his lips. His body heat was suffocating her, they were too close, and now she could almost see remnants of that night in his broad shoulders, in his strong, wandering hands that tickled wherever they went. The only thing that brought her back to reality was Kavner’s loud laughter, his nasal voice as he flirted with anything that moved in his eyesight. “I can accept that… I think.”

“I guess our moral codes will never match,” she replied after a while, moving away from him as Kavner took one of the girls, the blonde one, to the door at the right side of the hall. She couldn’t let him out of her sight, or let enough time pass for his body to process the drugs in his system. They already had too many examples of what his… _ingenuity_ could do when he was sober. “And I guess we’ll have to live with that.”

She glanced at him for a moment before following their target, studying in the space of a blink all the emotions showing in his face ( _resignation amusement bitterness pain weariness lust_ ), hoping those brief, yet sincere words could mend their relationship, at least a little.

Nothing would be like before, but that was to be expected. They could only move forward, after all.

\--

She knew something was wrong the moment she entered his office and found him bent over his documents, not really seeing them.

“Ressler,” she called him, walking to him to pick up the two personal files she had left on his desk, needed for her own paperwork. “You okay?”

A moment of reluctance passed between them. She noticed he had his phone in hand, squeezed so hard his knuckles were white. A personal emergency, something private? Probably, although she didn’t know anything about Ressler’s private life. Most of the time she assumed he didn’t have one, just like her.

“Not really,” he finally replied, averting his eyes to one of his perfectly organized drawers.

“Can I do something to help?”

Another moment of reluctance. She wasn’t sure what could she do for him, especially considering the little amount of trust between them, but lately they’d been civil towards each other, _almost_ friendly. Their irate, resentful tension wasn’t enough anymore; Samar personally enjoyed teasing him, being able to joke sometimes without that hyper-moralist Ressler appearing to judge her, and Aram had stopped panicking every time one addressed the other. Baby steps.

“No.” He ruffled his hair with one hand, sighing deeply. He had never seemed as old as in that moment, so tired and wary. “But thanks. I appreciate the offer.”

She stayed in the doorframe for a moment, debating between the many emotions running through her. She could never decide between being annoyed, amused, irritated or aroused with him; it was never as simple as putting him in his black-and-white moral box and leave him there, as she had planned since the beginning. For someone so universally regarded as inflexible and rigid, Donald Ressler never stopped surprising her, and she was sure he felt the same about her.

“Is something wrong?” Ressler asked her when he noticed she was still lingering in the doorway, motionless. His eyes had recovered some of their light, although they were still hooded and gloomy.

“Not really,” she said as she left his office, leaving the door open behind her.

\--

Light in that fucking closed was scarce, slipping dimly through the blinds behind them, and just by stretching her arms Samar could touch two walls at the same time.

“Navabi,” he whispered in her ear, remaining still to avoid knocking something down there and alerting their pursuers. “A closet, really?”

“What?”

“This is the most cliché hiding place in the world. I’m sure the first place guards look for intruders are in the closets.”

“I’m sorry for not taking us to _the_ _Bahamas_ for hiding.”

Why, if they were being chased and cornered by four beefy thugs, if they were squeezed in a dusty closet where there was barely room to breathe, was Samar smiling, with her heart and chest light? Footsteps on the other side of the door echoed harshly; a short knock, many voices mumbling things. That was what happened when they ended up getting caught undercover in a strange country following the scarce clues of a criminal. And yet—

“Shit, they’re opening the closets.”

“Told you.”

“We’ll have to use the old trick,” she said, ignoring her raced heartbeat and wandering thoughts. She was more professional than that, she _had_ to be. They were at work, looking for an unknown criminal that might or might not have plans to assassinate a German diplomat. She couldn’t lose perspective now, no matter what happened next.

“What?”

“Drunk lovers caught trying to fuck in a closet.”

“That’s really stupid.”

Voices outside were louder and louder; their pursuers were throwing each door open, probably a few steps away in the hall. She didn’t know how many were out there, she didn’t know if they had discovered them or if they were going to use lethal force immediately. They had to face the situation using the strategy with the less possibility of death for them, and that farse was the only thing she could think of that'd be remotely effective. Her feelings had nothing to do with that decision… or so she told herself.

There was only a moment of stillness, a ‘ _they’re not here’_ yelled outside the closet, before Ressler grabbed her ass, lifting her up and crushing her against a wall. She automatically wrapped her legs around his hips, grabbing his chin to plant a rough, stormy kiss on his lips, making sure to leave enough scarlet lipstick on his mouth. When she was certain both shared the same lip color, she turned her head away, letting him trace a path of kisses down her jaw and neck as the door next to theirs rattled and angry voices yelled: “ _Nothing!_ ”

Samar raised a hand and ran it through her mane, messing her already loose hair, and then through Ressler’s hair, trying to change in a second his boy scout look. Her other hand infiltrated between their bodies, going lower and lower, searching.

The doorknob trembled; they had barely managed to lock it on time, and the clanking of keys reverberated outside with a curse. Ressler’s teeth closed around her pulse, _hard_ , caressing the bruised skin with his tongue, and their entire situation vanished from her mind. The present and past caresses mixed as identical images, the wet suctions, the friction between them, hands firmly squeezing her ass, those involuntary noises climbing up her throat.

Samar didn’t know where she was anymore.

“Oh God,” she moaned when the door opened, closing her eyes against the sudden light. She told herself neither of them stopped their ministrations to make their arousal more credible, that it was only for the mission. An indignant scream outside the closet, another person going in. It was showtime. “Oh my God.”

She lightly patted Ressler’s shoulder to grab his attention, climbing down his hips with trembling legs that, to be honest, had nothing to do with fear or anxiety. He was startled and turned hurriedly, just to discover that Samar had undone his belt and pants; he had to grab them with one hand to avoid ending up only in his boxers, squeezing her hand with the other.

“Oh shit.”

“What the _fuck_ do you think you’re doing?” one of the guards spat in German; the other was already gone, opening the next door on the hallway, and that was how she knew their ruse had worked. She made a show of hiding behind Ressler, apparently scared of the unknown man.

“God, we’re so sorry—”

“We didn’t know… we just wanted—”

“ _Out_ ,” was the only thing the guard said, watching them derisively as they exited the cramped closet together, giggling like fools and fixing the disheveled clothes they had managed to mess in just a minute. Ressler tried to justify themselves with a rough voice, saying something like ‘ _you know how it is_ ’, but the guard took a step towards them and they walked faster, stumbling and smiling.

“ _Entschuldigung!_ ” she yelled behind her with a silly giggle, feeling the judgmental glare of the guard at her back. She didn’t stop laughing quietly until they were far enough, listening to the thugs’ hurried steps as they looked for an intruder they’d never find.

They hadn’t managed to access the killer’s computer, the alarm had resonated the moment they had opened the room, but they hadn’t been captured and tortured either, so she considered that night a moderate success. Now she just had to think how she was going to explain this to Cooper.

“Jesus,” said Ressler next to her, still fumbling with his belt. “You didn’t have to go this far. How did you manage to unzip it so fast?”

“I just wanted it to be authentic,” she replied with all the innocence she could muster, removing traces of lipstick from her chin and cheek. He snorted, not believing her for a second, as he tucked his shirt back in. They had to be presentable before going out to the street and facing the other agents that awaited them in a van; they couldn’t look as if they just had a quick fuck in a public bathroom.

 _No, don’t think about that. Pull yourself together._ She’d never stop blushing if she kept on thinking about those things. The deep throbs between her legs were embarrassing enough, the fact that her legs were still unsteady. Work, she was at _work_. She had to come back.

“And it worked, didn’t it?”

Ressler turned toward her, watching her with eyes darkened by an emotion she didn’t want to identify. Something in her face made him sneer cruelly; he pulled one of her wild strands of hair behind her ear before touching his neck twice with two fingers.

“Of course it worked,” he said, turning towards the back exit. Samar thought about following him right away, but that movement towards his neck made her uneasy. She went to the bathroom hurriedly, and her suspicions were confirmed as soon as she looked at herself on the mirror. Not only were her lips swollen, but there were also several red marks on her neck, already turning purple, on those sensitive spots he had touched with his lips and teeth.

He was a _dead man._

\--

“Had you noticed you and I are always the ones getting beaten up, or kidnapped, or caught, or sent undercover?” he told her in the hospital one afternoon, fidgeting with the cables of his infusion pump.

“I’m sure Liz and Reddington, wherever they are, resent that thought.”

To be completely honest, the whole team was always landing themselves on the hospital, the only thing that changed was person in question. Aram was probably the one with the least injuries, which was a relief to her; he was just as strong as them, but not in the same ways. She wasn’t sure he’d be able to endure a full-on beating, or almost being hanged, or being kidnapped and drugged.

“Who’s the one here with a damaged kidney?”

She raised her hands in surrender, smiling slightly. His hair was ruffled and his eyes were puffy, but he looked more alive than ever. The bruises on his face and arms created a jarring contrast against his pale, milky skin, more conspicuous than ever; she contained the urge to touch him.

A tall, blonde man had already visited him while she was there, the one Ressler had introduced as his brother Robert, but she was saved from that awkward situation by a convenient call from her handler of the Mossad.

“ _We’ll met at the usual place, six twenty_ ,” Harel had said on the phone, words chipped and cold; Samar had almost forgotten how it felt like to speak Hebrew. Too much English, too much America. “ _Asael wants to talk to you and Shur._ ”

Sometimes the fact that her work with the task force and Reddington was temporary slipped from her mind. It felt like she’d been chasing criminals and terrorists and hackers for a lifetime, as if she had known Aram and Ressler and Liz and Cooper her whole life. There would be a time where she would have to go back, where her services would be required elsewhere, but she tried not to think about that too much.

That, of course, was new; she had never felt too attached to any place in particular, much less one so far away from Tel Aviv. Sometimes she missed the scorching heat of Israel, the long nights in her tiny apartment reading her worn Quran copy, the quick roll of Hebrew and Persian and Arabic on her tongue, and sometimes, as she ate _koresh e alu_ and _kolompe_ in that tiny Irani restaurant a few blocks away from her flat, she even missed Tehran too.

But she _really_ tried not to think about that either.

She went back to Ressler’s room some minutes later after Robert’s departure, giving her partner some time to collect himself. People often got emotional after a visit of a loved one in the hospital, and their truce was still too recent, too unsteady. It was better to keep her distance, for everyone involved.

“You still here?” Ressler told her when she entered, not unkindly, faintly smirking.

“I _do_ have a bruised rib too, you know,” she replied, walking over to sit back on the sole chair of the room. The drugs in her system were strong, so she didn’t have any problems moving or bending, but the welts on her abdomen were ghastly, ranging from blue to black and red. They hurt even worse than they looked.

He just snorted, leaning back on his pillows with a grunt, and they remained silent for a while. Samar _should’ve_ been resting in her own room too, in theory, but she had asked for an early discharge, against the doctor’s recommendation and Aram and Ressler’s disapproval. Liz was too caught up in one of her crazy business with Reddington to care, and Cooper was dealing once again with his overbearing superiors. Such was the way in the task force.

“I have a meeting with some Mossad coworkers tomorrow,” she said involuntary, a confession born from a strange need to say it out loud. She never talked about her previous work with the task force, it was strictly prohibited, but she supposed it didn’t really matter. Ressler was the least corrupt agent she had ever met.

“I see,” he replied after a moment of silence, watching her carefully. “I guess you can’t tell me what it’s about.”

“Not really.”

He averted his gaze, watching the roof of his room with wandering eyes. He was about to say something important, something so personal he couldn’t make eye contact; Samar braced herself for the worst.

“Can I ask you a small favor?” was the thing he settled for, voice low and deep.

“Depends on what it involves.”

Ressler smiled softly, an expression she had never seen on his face, or at least never directed at her. “When the time comes for you to leave the task force, would you mind keeping in contact with us? Send a text message once in a while, a nice postcard or somethin’.”

The shock she felt must’ve reflected in her face, because he glanced at her and promptly burst into laughter, clutching his torso.

“Ah, ouch! Shit.” He calmed down after a while, running his fingers through his hair, leaning his head slightly to the left. “You don’t have to look so surprised. Aram would be heartbroken if you left us just like that.”

“The times zones are really different,” was the only thing she could come up with, trying to gather her wits. Had he been thinking about the same things as her, about her limited time in America and her true allegiances? When he thought about the Mossad, did he also think about the fact one day she’d have to leave forever, about their provisional friendship?

Samar wasn’t meant to be there, her whole relationship with Aram and Ressler wasn’t meant to be. She also hadn’t meant to get so close to her coworkers, to know them all so well, and that was on her. She should’ve known better; this wasn’t her first rodeo.

“I don’t care. Just don’t be a stranger, alright? Don’t just drop off the face of the planet.”

His face was so earnest, his voice so honest and husky, she could only nod and pretend there wasn’t a knot in her throat, that her chest wasn’t suddenly tight. He raised a hand towards her, and she took it after a moment of doubt. He was warm, and rough, and the beeping of his heartbeats quickened.

Samar had thought their toxic, strained relationship had been bad enough, but this was worse, way worse, and yet—

And yet she wouldn’t change a thing. Even knowing how it would end. Even knowing it had to end.

\--

“You know, people will never bleed enough for your vision of justice. That’s something you’ll have to live with.”

Her words were a caress in his ear, a raindrop in the middle of a storm; they had long since dropped the pretense of politeness between each other, before Levi and his new wife disappeared and after the drinks had been served. It’d been a while since she had been this drunk, but not enough to black out, not enough to make her forget where she was. Ressler was a quiet drunk, just like her, and had taken the opportunity to dance with her again as soon as he could, probably just looking for an excuse to press himself against her.

She was definitely not complaining about that.

“Nice timing to talk ‘bout this,” he eventually replied, burying his nose in her hair, for once tied back and brushed. They were swaying irregularly with the music, one of the two couples on the dance floor. Some had already left, some were asleep on their chairs, and some were fucking on the bushes outside. Levi had always known how to throw a good party, despite his quite orthodox upbringing.

“Maybe you’ll actually listen to me if you’re drunk.”

“I always listen to you.”

She hummed against his throat, feeling the fabric of his jacket, the rough, exposed skin above his tie. The world had slowed down that night, and it was really late, probably about to dawn. Only now Samar allowed herself some freedom, to let her thoughts drift away and her body relax. She was at one of her former lover’s wedding, dancing some kind of hybrid waltz with another former lover, thinking about all the things she could never have, and the things she already did.

 _I’m too drunk for this_ , she thought, planting a kiss on his jaw. He hummed too, tightening his arm around her.

“You’re probably right,” he said, echoing her first sentence as he twirled them slowly, completely uncoordinated with the music. “Never bleed ‘nough for my vision of justice. Never ‘nough.”

And she decided to leave it at that. She let him spin her around at four in the morning and drag her to a secluded corner and she forgot all about consequences and morality and betrayal. Just for a night, Samar let it go.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Aram/Samar as much as the next person, but you'll have to drag this ship from my cold, dead hands.


End file.
